Space or the lack thereof

It's the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Yay!? We're busy getting the house all nice and clean and organized because K's family is coming over to spend Thanksgiving with us. There's lists and activity and anxiety. Well, the anxiety is mostly mine. I just see stuff everywhere. As in, we have way too much of it. I think we need to get rid of a lot of stuff. I think I need to lead by example. Maybe this should be one of my next year New Year Resolutions. One thing that I have way too much of and all needs to go is my old racing tapes. I have tons of tapes VHS and 8mm of my old car races from inside the car. I have tapes from other people racing. They are in this big trunk where they have not seen the light of day in years. So, they're out of here.

One thing I don't think I can get rid of is tools. I do have tons of tools. Some of them are very specialized and therefore, not something that gets used very frequently. The thing is, when that specific need arises, having the right tool saves a lot of time and cursing. There are a few tools that I know I won't use though. Like the tire balancer. Maybe even the car alignment gauges. I don't think I'll be using either, since I don't think I'll be racing any time soon and it's not like I have the time or space to do a car alignment on my daily driver in the garage.

This brings me to the garage. How come garages have become the prime storage room of the American Household? Ours is covered with shelves, stacked with stuff, floor to ceiling. Plus, bikes, tools and these days, pieces of furniture (plural), lots of wood from previous projects, work benches, etc. I think I'm going to borrow a truck and make a run to the dumpster in a week or so and get rid of a lot of this stuff. I don't need to park both cars or even one of them daily in the garage, but I sure would like to be able to get one in there if I need to, you know, to maybe change the oil even though it's 30 or 95 degrees outside.

I guess I'd like for it to be more of a workshop than a storage. Well, honestly, it is a workshop, it's just that sometimes we keep several "works in progress" with their pieces and tools there, waiting for their turn of our ever diminishing free time. So, what's the strategy here? How do I fix it? Maybe try to focus on completing projects that we started? Helping K finish those that she has going? Not starting a new one until done with the current one? Maybe that's another one for the New Year's Resolutions list.

Well, I need to get going here. The list is long and the coffee is getting cold and I need to finish both.